Pollen morphology, deep learning, phylogenetics, and the evolution of environmental adaptations in <i>Podocarpus</i>
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Podocarpus pollen morphology is shaped by both phylogenetic history and the environment. We analyzed the relationship between pollen traits quantified using deep learning and environmental factors within a comparative phylogenetic framework. We investigated the influence of mean annual temperature, annual precipitation, altitude, and solar radiation in driving morphological change. We used trait-environment regression models to infer the temperature tolerances of 31 Neotropical Podocarpidites fossils. Ancestral state reconstructions were applied to the Podocarpus phylogeny with and without the inclusion of fossils. Our results show that temperature and solar radiation influence pollen morphology, with thermal stress driving an increase in pollen size and higher ultraviolet B radiation selecting for thicker corpus walls. Fossil temperature tolerances inferred from trait-environment models aligned with paleotemperature estimates from global paleoclimate models. Incorporating fossils into ancestral state reconstructions revealed that early ancestral Podocarpus lineages were likely adapted to warm climates, with cool-temperature tolerance evolving independently in high-latitude and high-altitude species. Our results highlight the importance of deep learning-derived features in advancing our understanding of plant environmental adaptations over evolutionary timescales. Deep learning allows us to quantify subtle interspecific differences in pollen morphology and link these traits to environmental preferences through statistical and phylogenetic analyses.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".